Van Zandt was a Confederate soldier, legislator, merchant, banker, and
community leader. He was born in 1836 in Salem, Tennessee, and moved to Texas
in 1839. He also spent part of childhood in Washington D.C. where his father,
Isaac Van Zandt (1813-1847), negotiated the annexation of the Republic of
Texas. He served as a Confederate officer during the Civil War. Following the
war, he moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and became a merchant and advocate of
railroad construction. In 1873, he organized the Tarrant County Construction
Company which supervised the grading for the Texas and Pacific Railroad. In
1874, he established the Fort Worth National Bank, of which he served as
president for fifty-six years. He also served as president of the K. M. Van
Zandt Land Company and as a director of the Fort Worth Life Insurance Company.
Van Zandt served for twenty years on the Fort Worth school board and served in
the Texas House of Representatives during Reconstruction. He supported
educational and religious movements and, for over sixty years, was a member and
elder of the First Christian Church at Fort Worth. Van Zandt died in 1930 in
Fort Worth.

The collection includes correspondence, financial materials, legal
materials, scrapbook material, printed material, and photographs. Bulks
(1835-1942) with material related to Van Zandt's Civil War, business, and
personal experiences. Also contains genealogical material, including the
reminiscences of Van Zandt's son on the Mexican Revolution and a copy of Van
Zandt's memoirs which were edited and published as
Force Without Fanfare: The Autobiography of K. M.
Van Zandt.